In South Africa, pass laws were a form of internal passport system designed to segregate the population, manage urbanisation, and allocate migrant labour. Also known as the natives law, pass laws severely limited the movements of not only black African citizens, but other peoples as well by requiring them to carry pass books when outside their homelands or designated areas. Before the 1950s, this legislation largely applied to African men, and attempts to apply it to women in the 1910s and 1950s were met with significant protests. Pass laws would be one of the dominant features of the country's apartheid system, until it was effectively ended in 1986.

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The first internal passports in South Africa were introduced on 27 June 1797 by the Earl Macartney in an attempt to prevent natives from entering the Cape Colony.[1] The Cape Colony was merged with other states in the region to form the Union of South Africa in 1910, under the UK. By this time, versions of pass laws existed elsewhere. A major boost for their utilisation was the rise of the mining sector from the 1880s: pass laws provided a convenient means of controlling workers' mobility and enforcing contracts.

In 1896 the South African Republic brought in two pass laws which required Africans to carry a metal badge. Only those employed by a master were permitted to remain on the Rand. Those entering a "labour district" needed a special pass which entitled them to remain for three days.[2]

The Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 deemed urban areas in South Africa as "white" and required all black African men in cities and towns to carry around permits called "passes" at all times. Anyone found without a pass would be arrested immediately and sent to a rural area. It was replaced in 1945 by the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, which imposed "influx control" on black men, and also set up guidelines for removing people deemed to be living idle lives from urban areas. This act outlined requirements for African peoples' "qualification" to reside legally in white metropolitan areas. To do so, they had to have Section 10 rights, based on whether[3]

the person had been born there and resided there always since birth;

the person had laboured continuously for ten years in any agreed area for any employer, or lived continuously in any such area for fifteen years;

The Black (Natives) Laws Amendment Act of 1952 amended the 1945 Native Urban Areas Consolidation Act, stipulating that all black people over the age of 16 were required to carry passes, and that no black person could stay in an urban area more than 72 hours unless allowed to by Section 10.[4] The ironically named Natives (Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents) Act of 1952, commonly known as the Pass Laws Act, repealed the many regional pass laws and instituted one nationwide pass law, which made it compulsory for all black South Africans over the age of 16 to carry the "pass book" at all times within white areas. The law stipulated where, when, and for how long a person could remain. [5]

The document was similar to an internal passport, containing details on the bearer such as their fingerprints, photograph, the name of his/her employer, his/her address, how long the bearer had been employed, as well as other identification information. Employers often entered a behavioural evaluation, on the conduct of the pass holder.

An employer was defined under the law and could only be a white person. The pass also documented permission requested and denied or granted to be in a certain region and the reason for seeking such permission. Under the terms of the law, any governmental employee could strike out such entries, basically canceling the permission to remain in the area.

A pass book without a valid entry then allowed officials to arrest and imprison the bearer of the pass. These passes often became the most despised symbols of apartheid. The resistance to the Pass Law led to many thousands of arrests and was the spark that ignited the Sharpeville Massacre on March 21, 1960, and led to the arrest of Robert Sobukwe that day.

Colloquially, passes were often called the dompas, literally meaning the "dumb pass."

Apart from discrimination against black people, there was also discrimination against the so-called "coloured people." The "coloured" included all Indians, Chinese and Arabs, as well as those of "mixed" black/white ethnicity. Indian people, for example, were barred from the Orange Free State.[6]

The 1950s saw the ANC begin the Defiance Campaign to oppose the pass laws. This conflict climaxed at the Sharpeville Massacre, where the anti-pass protestors led by the rival breakaway Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) surrounded the Sharpeville police station, prompting the police to open fire, killing 69 people and injuring over 180. Subsequent protests and strikes were met with major repression and the ANC and PAC were both banned.

On July 23, 1986, as part of a process of removing some apartheid laws, the South African government lifted the requirement to carry passbooks, although the pass law system itself was not yet repealed.[7] The system of pass laws was formally repealed retroactive on April 23, 1986, with the Abolition of Influx Control Act. Helen Suzman (MP) mentioned the act the most eminent reform of a government had ever introduced.[8]